Dispensing closures, including lugs, stops, and the like, for positively aligning the closure relative to a specific location, on a plastic container, such as the front of a bottle, are known. To illustrate, U.S. Pat. No. 5,143,234, granted Sep. 1, 1992 to Richard Lohrman et al, discloses a dispensing closure (20), employing a living, or snap-acting, hinge (26), and utilizing an alignment rib (30) for providing a positive alignment of the thumb recess (14) for facilitating the lifting of a hinged closure lid (24). In the preferred embodiment of FIGS. 1–5, cooperating alignment ribs (30, 48) are located upon the bottle neck and the interior of the closure. The alignment ribs are interrelated in such a manner that when the closure is threaded up the bottle neck, the mating ribs do not contact one another in the first instance, but eventually contact and abut each other after at least one full turn of the closure upon the bottle neck, and before one and one-half full turns of the closure upon the bottle neck, thereby positioning the thumb recess (14) in the center of the bottle face, as shown in FIG. 4. The bottle face contains the brand name of the product, an advertisement for such product, fanciful graphics, etc. so that the proper alignment of the dispensing closure is of commercial significance.
Another positive orientation system for a dispensing closure, with an internally threaded skirt, and a closure, is shown in U.S. Pat. No. 5,145,080, granted Sep. 8, 1992, to Leo R. Imbery, Jr. The Imbery, Jr. patent discloses a container (30) having a neck (36) defining an opening (38) to the interior of the container, an external screw thread (50), and a protuberance (80). The protuberance has generally opposite abutment surfaces (leading surface 96, and trailing surface 98), and at least one cam surface (106, 110) extending between the abutment surfaces. The closure (32) has a skirt (44) defining an internal screw thread (48) for engaging the external screw thread on the container. The skirt defines a recess (82) for receiving a protuberance (80). The recess is defined at opposite ends by spaced-apart engaging surfaces (121, 122) for confronting the abutment surfaces of the protuberance. The skirt is sufficiently resilient, as shown in FIG. 6, to deform as relative threading engagement is effected between the closure and the container neck to accommodate relative movement of the container neck and closure until the protuberance is received in the recess, as shown in FIG. 5, to prevent relative rotation between the closure and the container.
Another positive orientation system for dispensing closures secured to plastic containers is disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 6,431,381, granted Aug. 13, 2002, to Jeffrey T. Randall. In the preferred embodiment of FIGS. 1–5, Randall discloses a closure (30) having a lug seal (50) that cooperates with a container neck lug (28) formed on a shoulder (27) on an interior surface (25) of the container neck (26). In the alternative embodiment of FIGS. 6–11, Randall discloses a positive orientation system employing at least one neck lug (128) on an end of the container neck (121), and the closure body (132) is provided with at least the closure neck lug (154) extending from the closure neck, and adapted to engage a corresponding one of the at least one (usually two) neck lugs. The engagement of the lugs limits the threaded engagement between the closure and the container during installation of the dispensing closure, but permits unthreading removal of the closure from the container, when necessary or desirable.